Želimir Koščević’s Exhibition Cartographies is an attempt to historicise curatorial practice in contemporary art in Croatia through the example of the work of curator emeritus Želimir Koščević. He worked progressively as the director and curator of the Student Centre Gallery in Zagreb (originally built as the Pavilion of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at the Zagreb Fair in 1928–1929, designed by Ivan Zemljak, a member of the Zemlja group), and later as a curator at the Gallery/Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb (as well as the Lang Photo Gallery in Samobor).
It is important to emphasise that the history of curatorial practices remains a relatively under-researched field within the Croatian art-historical context, while internationally it has become an increasingly prominent area of inquiry. While the history of exhibitions, in the modern sense of the universal right to public visibility, can be traced back to the revolutionary upheavals of the late eighteenth century, the history of contemporary curatorial exhibitions is being written in the present. This opens up possibilities for questioning existing models of institutional policy, conceptual frameworks, and modes of presentation.
Following the Rijeka Salon ’54, which introduced the powerful and authoritative figure of the curator as selector of exhibited works (as discussed by Zlatko Galić in his introductory text), the emergence of neo-avant-garde practices and institutional theory and critique in the 1950s and 1960s destabilised established meanings and institutional positions associated with the artist, the artwork, the curator, and the audience. This led to a more active role for curators in mediating new artistic expressions—from the authorship of thematic exhibitions and exhibition-statements to the radical questioning and eventual abolition of the curatorial position itself. Examples include Koščević’s exhibitions Imaginary Museum I–III (1966–1968), Exhibitions of Women and Men (1971), Mail Art (1972), and culminating in the major international exhibition Cartographers: Geo-Gnostic Projections for the 21st Century (1997).
When curators of Koščević’s generation (he was born in Zagreb in 1939) emerged on the scene, they redefined their own professional position and effectively assumed the role of meta-artists. This phenomenon became known as the curatorial turn. Rather than relying on linear museological narratives, Koščević employed artistic methods within his curatorial practice, using exhibition displays and museum artefacts as creative material, experimenting with modes of viewing, and conceiving exhibitions as holistic experiences.
Koščević transformed the Student Centre Gallery into an experimental and open workshop of deprofessionalised art and subsequently introduced art into the public space of the city, thereby de-institutionalising it. Alongside experimental, critical, and interactive exhibitions, he organised public talks and discussions and actively mobilised and educated audiences through the pedagogical programmes of the Student Centre Gallery and later the Gallery of Contemporary Art.
+385 21 32 92 84
Poljička cesta 35, Split, Croatia
INTRANET
WEBMAIL
Pristupačnost
